Artificial
by Pieling
Summary: What if Danny had never become half ghost in the accident with the ghost portal? What if his parents had made him that way to begin with...


Artificial

By Pieling

Prologue

"Are all the parameters set at the correct levels, Jack?"

The woman who spoke was young, perhaps not even thirty yet, with bright red hair pulled back with a black headband keeping it out of her stunning violet eyes. She wore a white lab coat and held an air of authority around her, poised with confidence yet brimming with nervous excitement.

"Yeah, everything's set, Maddie," replied her companion. He, too, wore a white labcoat, but his was many times bigger to encompass his girth. He was the same age as the woman, and yet he had a few streaks of silver in his black hair, perhaps because of stress. His blue eyes held the same anxious excitement as her's, but they also twinkled with a childlike delight.

"Are you sure? Remember what happened last time?" Maddie replied playfully.

Jack chuckled. "I said I was sorry! And I _did_ manage to get that scorch mark off the floor eventually."

"But you're sure everything is set?"

"Yep. I checked it _and_ double-checked it. We're good to go," he said.

The couple were working in a lab, almost futuristic in the level of technology it contained. It was cluttered with tables holding beakers of a strange glowing green substance and odd machines in every corner. The two were stationed at a table which held a computer to one side, and on the other side was a curious contraption. A petri dish sat upon a raised stand. On either side of the dish were two rods with coils around them that pointed at the container, and each rod connected to a machine which was linked to a generator and the computer. Inside the petri dish was a blob of the glowing green substance, ectoplasm.

"Alright then," said Maddie. She typed away at the computer. "Initiate stage one."

The hit the enter key and the generator started up with a soft hum. They waited a few minutes while the humming grew louder.

"Initiate stage two," she said, hitting the enter key. The rods began glowing slightly.

"Here we go. I hope it works this time..." said Jack.

Maddie didn't reply, but instead said, "Initiate stage three."

Her finger hovered uncertainly over the enter key for a split second before softly stiking it.

There was a sudden bright flash as electricity surged from one rod to the other, passing through the petri dish. The ectoplasm expanded and contracted, shuddering as if it were in pain.

"The readings are stable," murmured Jack. He waited a moment, then said, "Turn it off now."

"No, no! Just a few moments longer! The other ones that got this amount of electricity failed. Just a few seconds longer!" she said breathlessly. There was a desperate glint in her eyes.

"Any longer and it will explode! Turn it off!"

So she did. The flow of electricity stopped and the humming of the generator died out. The couple rushed over to look at the petri dish. They held their breaths as the blob shuddered. The twitching ectoplasm soon stopped moving.

Tears formed in Maddie's eyes. Jack turned around and ran his hand through his hair. "Dammit!" he cursed.

There was a pregnant pause.

Then, "Jack! Jack, come look!"

He rushed back to his wife and stared in awe at what was occuring. The ectoplasm had begun moving again, its shape twisting and contorting.

"The human DNA is reacting with the ectoplasm..." murmured Maddie.

Then, for a brief second, the blob took on the shape of a human fetus, but it quickly contorted back into a shapeless mass. Jack ran over to another table and grabbed an eyedropper with ectoplasm in it. He ran back over and emptied out a few drops of the green liquid into the petri dish. The writhing green blob absorbed the extra ectoplasm, and its movements became less violent and it stopped changing shape so quickly. After a few more drops, it finally remained in the shape of a fetus.

"It... it worked! Maddie, it worked! We did it! We made a human-ghost hybrid!" Jack yelled, enveloping his wife in a hug.

She smiled. "It looks like its growth rate is proportional to the amount of ectoplasm we give it. So possibly, in a few weeks, it will look like a ten year old boy..."

"What should we name him?" Jack asked.

"Name him?" she said, bewildered.

"Yeah, we can't just go around calling him P-36. He needs a name."

"Well, if we ever had a son, I wanted to name him Daniel."

"Daniel... Daniel...," he said, as if testing the name, "Daniel. Danny. Danny Fenton. I like it."

"What about a middle name?" asked Maddie, watching the ecto-embryo with awe.

"Well, we chose the first name, but since he has genes from you, me, _and _Vlad..." he trailed off.

"Daniel Vladimir Fenton."

A/N: I really have no clue where this came from. The idea for this fic just struck me out of nowhere and I had to write it. Unfortunately, exams start next week, so I won't be able to update for a while. But, please leave a review to encourage me to write more.


End file.
